Current music:	sailor myu: ii ko wa yameta (AARGH)
Entry tags:	anime: princess tutu, fic

Princess Tutu; Entertaining the Old Man
Ah, Princess Tutu. If only I could give you deserve! This'll have to do. I'm not quite where where it came from, but.. I DO know that Drosselmeyer (and not to mention Lilie) creep me out because, in all honestly, he's no worse than us, the viewer. Sometimes I want to beat him for treating the characters the way that he does, other times I want to thank him for the story. Thankfully none of them actually exist!

Again, a very short piece. It goes without saying that suggestions will be fully appreciated. It's far from perfect, and I'd like to shape it up into the best that I can. That's why I'm posting it here, after all. :D

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Ah, but an old man gets bored with all his puppets asleep and nobody to entertain him.

Wake up, Drosselmeyer said to Mytho. Dance for me.

Mytho's eyes jerked opened. In truth he needed not sleep. When it grew dark he obediently laid in his bed, closed his eyes, and turned off his consciousness. But only because Fakir made such a fuss over it. Sleep, awake, it made no difference to him. He felt nothing either way.

If Mytho wondered why his bedroom had been replaced with the ruin site of an ancient Greek structure he did not ask. He merely rose to his feet and began to dance.

Drosselmeyer rocked back and forth on his rocking chair, content. Nothing was better than a good story, true, but sometimes physical poetry was so much more relaxing. Particularly the prince's. Fakir was lovely for his emotionally intensive movements, making him someone Drosselmeyer watched when he was in the mood for a stomach-ache. (All that frowning and sweating agitated him. It made him want to throw a tomato or two at the boy. It's just a dance! Don't pull your life conflicts into it. Life is a joke, relax already. Not that he really had any right to criticize Fakir's personality seeing how he himself had created it.)

Mytho threw a look at Drosselmeyer; would you like to dance with me? Everyone else does. Drosselmeyer waved him away, no, no, I'm not just old, I'm dead, if I were up to running and jumping and cart wheeling I wouldn't have all you puppets to keep me entertained, now would I? Puppet prince shrugged, almost as if to say, your loss, but of course the shrug meant no such thing. Mytho couldn't care less either way.

No music played. Music served as Mytho's cues as to where to start and stop. Without it he was set on infinite loop. Where his energy came from is a mystery (and, as Drosselmeyer would chuckle if asked, aren't mysteries what makes a story interesting?) but whatever it was he seemed to have an unlimited supply. If you do not draw from life you cannot exhaust the source.

For a puppet he moved with surprising fluidity. Perhaps it's because Drosselmeyer didn't pull on his strings, per say, more like imbued commands into his head, commands that revived old memories. Mytho's dance was based on a faded memory. The body never truly forgets what was ingrained onto it. Thus Mytho knew his steps perfectly, but without a soul to fill the dance, it was lifeless. Like his eyes.

You were never my favorite, Drosselmeyer told Mytho. There's scores of characters I like better than you-- there's that witty cat in boots, for one. Always good for a laugh. You're not even my favorite from my own stories. You were just too perfect. Who's going to like a prince that's all strong, all loving, all sacrificing? No reader can sympathize with a flawless being. I'm glad I died while writing your story. It finally stripped you of that annoying perfectness.

Mytho was undisturbed by these revelations. It is impossible to hurt feelings that do not exist.

No, mused Drosselmeyer further, you weren't the interesting one. You're a smidgeon bit interesting now, puppet that you are, but the ones that are really bringing the story to life is are all those other characters. How they go insane over you! The lengths they'll go to have you as theirs! That's the advantage of a perfect character-- it inspires the others to do so much more. They all want the same thing, you know-- you. Heaven knows why. What can you do with a mute pretty toy aside from watch it?

At this Drosselmeyer laughed openly. Look at me, watching you. I'm no better than those characters I made up!

Mytho went on dancing to the tunes of Drosselmeyer's ramblings.